SpaceDev,
the world’s first publicly traded commercial space exploration and development
company today announced it has delivered its revolutionary SpaceDev BD-II(TM)
CHIPSat microsatellite to the Space Science Laboratory of the University of
California at Berkeley.

“CHIPSat will be an orbiting node on the Internet — the most
revolutionary aspect of this spacecraft — and this delivery is SpaceDev’s
biggest accomplishment — very few companies in the world have built such a
small, affordable and capable spacecraft,” said SpaceDev founder and CEO Jim
Benson.
“SpaceDev is introducing the ‘microcomputer’ way of thinking into the
$100 billion space industry, which has been bogged down for decades in the old
‘mainframe’ way of thinking — that bigger is better.
We are creating
smaller, innovative subsystems, satellites and entire missions that can be
produced in quantity and sold as products into this massive and expanding
market.
This approach helps increase reliability and reduce the cost of our
space products, while setting the stage for increased sales from our growing
and unique space product line.”

SpaceDev successfully completed in-house tests of the NASA-funded CHIPSat
microsatellite, and today shipped it to Berkeley.
CHIPSat is a sophisticated,
high-performance 45 kg satellite designed to accommodate the 25 kg CHIPS
instrument designed by Dr. Mark Hurwitz of Berkeley.
CHIPSat is scheduled to
launch in 2002 from Vandenberg AFB in California.
It will launch on a Boeing
Delta-II, for which the SpaceDev BD-II was designed, and which is
the most widely used launch vehicle for small satellites.
Boeing launches
provide the most launch opportunities for the SpaceDev BD-II.

“The SpaceDev BD-II gives SpaceDev a strategically important product at a
time when micro- and nano-satellites are growing in demand,” said SpaceDev
MicroSat Program Manager Jeff Janicik.
“We now have a qualified microsat bus
available to sell as a standard, fixed-price product to NASA, the Air Force,
commercial customers, or any party needing an affordable satellite for their
small payload.
Our development of the SpaceDev BD-II satellite has resulted
in six innovative new SpaceDev products in the last two years.”

Among the revolutionary new products premiering on SpaceDev’s BD-II are: a
miniature, high-performance, 300 MIPS flight computer using a Motorola
microprocessor; a miniature, variable power STDN-compatible S-band
Transceiver/Transponder; a miniature, modular power conditioning and
distribution subsystem; the unique and portable SpaceDev MicroSat-Operating
System(TM) (MS-OS(TM)); the Internet-based SpaceDev Mission Control and
Operations Package(TM) (MC-OP(TM)); and the SpaceDev BD-II Boeing Delta-II
secondary-compatible satellite bus.

“I and my team are looking forward to receiving CHIPSat and to the
integration and test phases of the project,” said Dr. Hurwitz.
“The SpaceDev
spacecraft provides the mission with superior capabilities compared to what
was described in the UC Berkeley proposal originally selected by NASA.”

Founded in 1997, SpaceDev designs, assembles, tests and markets affordable
space systems including sophisticated micro-satellites, hybrid rocket-based
orbital maneuvering and orbital transfer vehicles (MTVs), and safe hybrid
rocket motors for sub-orbital space tourism and other applications.
SpaceDev
is working with Sea Launch to explore offering low-cost launches for secondary
microsat payloads, and has been working with the NRO to develop affordable
kick motors for micro-satellites.

For more information, contact Jim Benson at 858-375-2020

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